Netbackup 7.6.1.2 backward compatibility with Win2003 and DDBoost

[SteveLaw]

Hi,

I'm preparing to upgrade from Netbackup 7.5.0.6 to 7.6.1.2, which we heed to support VSphere 6.0. We have numerous Windows servers ranging from Win2003 x32 to Win 2012. Two media servers have SAN visibility of the VMWare datastores and are used to backup VMs - these are the key servers (along with the master) that need to be upgraded. 

We use Data Domain and have numerous large servers with the media server install combined with the DDBoost OST agent to enable dedupe at source - these servers typically only back themselves up, writing directly to Data Domain. 

I have 7tb of data on Win2003 R2 x32 servers to backup. These aren't compatible with NB7.6.1.2 anyway, so I was planning to leave the, at the 7.6.0.5 level. I've also just found that with Netbackup 7.6 OST support for Win 2003 32-bit media servers has been dropped (see “Veritas NetBackup ™ Enterprise Server and Server 7.0 - 7.6.x Hardware Compatibility List” (April 2016) on p.34).

My question is - if I upgrade the master and VMWare Proxy media servers to 7.6.1.2 and leave the Win2003 R2 x32 bit media servers as they are on 7.5.0.6, will there be a problem with the DDboost OST support? The Win2003 R2 x32 bit servers just write their own data directly to Data Domain. 

Thanks! 

[vjuhola · Accepted solution]

In page 40 of the HCL you can see that OST plug-in 2.6 is supported with Win2003 32bit, so if you have that in place everything works, given that your DD OS is at least 5.2.x.x.

However, if you have a look at EMC's DDboost compatibility matrix you'll see that it is not a supported configuration as per Win 2003 EOL: https://support.emc.com/docu51631_Data-Domain-Boost-Compatibility-Guide.pdf?language=en_US

To my assessment it will work but it is not a supported configuration.

[SteveLaw]

Aha, I did not know that! 
It currently does work, and I guess as long as the DDOS supports it we won't have a problem. My main concern was that somehow the Win 2003 media server running NB7.5.0.6 and DDBoost would stop working if the master was upgraded to 7.6. I guess not: 7.6 is compatible with 7.5. 

Thanks for your help!